


the greater fool

by pasdecoeur



Series: stevetony works [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-24 20:08:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20913389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasdecoeur/pseuds/pasdecoeur
Summary: Tony tries to look away. He can feel a coil of cold sweat slowly unspooling down his back. But Steve is looking at him, with those pale, ice-chip blue eyes, and Tony is trapped, held under, drowning. There is a tremor working through his fingers, now, and it feels like fear and anger and bewilderment.And that's why Tony asks the question. That's why Tony blurts it out.“Why are you single?”Steve cracks a smile. “Well, most men have a pretty hard time looking past the shield, actually—”Was that a pun? For fuck’s sake. “I'm serious, Rogers.”The smile dies. And Steve replies, “Because you never asked me out.”





	the greater fool

**Author's Note:**

> The title and initial conversation are largely borrowed from HBO’s The Newsroom season 1 finale episode, ‘The Greater Fool,’ written by Aaron Sorkin.

“Where were you this morning?”

Steve puts down his. . . tea? Since when does Captain America drink sencha? And peers at Tony all disapproving over the top of his StarkPad. Hah. So Tony _has_ finally lured him over to the dark side.

“Hi Tony. Nice to see you too. Lovely weather we're having, isn't it?”

“Don't you try that shit with me.” Tony narrows his eyes. “You had a lunch.”

“With Natasha,” Steve confirms.

The dread grows in Tony's stomach. Steve is getting up to his feet. “Where are you _going_, I am not _done_ with you yet, why did you have lunch with Natasha, Steve—_Steven!”_

“Natasha’s my friend,” Steve says, all placid, getting into the elevator, hitting the button for the gym floor. “I like spending time with my friends.”

_You never spend time with me, _Tony's inner five-year-old immediately supplies.

“Don't feed me the party line, what am I? An idiot?”

“Genius, or so everybody tells me.”

Tony wants to _hit_ something. “They want you to go to DC, don't they?”

Steve stays quiet. Oh god, they _do_.

“Steve,” Tony presses. The lifts dings and the doors slide open. Steve starts walking to the lockers; Tony hot on his heels.

“Yeah,” Steve says quietly. “I could—I could really help, Tony. Before, during the war, I always went where they needed me. Right now, DC’s where they need me most.”

“The war is _over_,” Tony snaps, because that's better than saying _I need you most._

It's not like Tony’s dating _Steve_. He's dating Pepper. Whom he loves, beyond reason and words.

“Yeah, well. Honestly? This feels like a good idea right now.” He looks at Tony then, stops fiddling with the dial to his gym locker for three whole seconds. “I need to do this. It’d be nice if you were, I don’t know, happy for me or something.”

Tony scowls at him. That's unfair, that is. How are you supposed to say no to that face? “You're supposed to use your powers for good, not evil,” Tony complains, and Steve twinkles at him, the bastard.

“Mm-hm.”

Tony lingers while Steve pulls out his workout clothes, and then— then starts _stripping_. Right there. Just. Just.

“Um.”

The shirt comes off first, button by button, a slow tease, revealing the pale, smooth lines of his chest inch by torturous inch, and oh _god_ Tony’s wearing sweats, and he didn't bother with underwear and oh god _oh god—_ Steve’s taking off his _pants—_

_Think of Pepper, _Tony tells himself desperately. _Think of Pepper, _but that doesn't help, now he’s imagining Pepper in that sheer black thing she wore last weekend, taking down Steve’s zipper with her teeth, damping the front of his boxer-briefs, and oh _god_—

“Uh. I don't— I should—”

“Okay,” Steve says, and he sounds a little… exasperated, actually. “Is this about Pepper?”

“_What_.”

“Bruce said you were having a nervous breakdown last week, so I figured… what’s it this time? You two breaking up again?”

“What?! No!” For _fuck’s_ sake. “That was _**one**_ time!”

Steve arches a disbelieving eyebrow. “Are we not counting the time you guys stopped talking after the kraken incident? And the time she took Rhodey as her date for the Black and Pink Ball? And the time—”

“Okay! Fine! It was more than once, god, you don't have to be—” Steve is down to his underwear and socks. This is hell. This is _literally_ Tony's version of hell. This is like sending an addict into a crackhouse. Not that Steve is cocaine. Or that Tony is addicted to him. Because that would be—haha, what. “Look,” Tony says, sinking down onto a bench, “I'm planning to ask her to move in with me. Into the tower.”

A beat. “You are?”

There's something about Steve’s voice, that puts Tony on edge. “Well, you're gonna be gone,” he says, too sharp, “So it's not like I won't have the room.”

“You know,” Steve says pointedly, “It’s harder to breakup when you're living together.”

“What is this, rag-on-Tony day—?”

“You have to get cartons,” Steve goes on relentlessly. He’s put on his workout clothes and headed to the sandbags, all of which makes it a lot easier to get mad at him again.

“Pepper’s a _millionaire_,” Tony retorts, “she wouldn't need _cartons_, she can literally buy a whole moving company—”

“So you're definitely anticipating more break-ups, then?”

Tony stutters. “That's not what I—”

“Do you ever think about what it says about your relationship, Tony?” Steve interrupts, a little too calm for Tony's continued mental well-being, taking a one-two swing at the reinforced sandbag, “That every time you two break up, you're always the one getting dumped?”

One-two-three, step, one-two-three, step. Steve’s rhythm is impeccable. You could waltz to it.

“That I’m a terrible boyfriend,” Tony says quietly, desperately, hands curling into fists, nails digging into his palms. He knows that. Pepper deserves better. Why would Steve point that out? Tony _knows_ that. Why would he be so cruel? “I _know_ that—”

Steve falters, his next punch so vicious it smashes a cavity right through the sandbag. “That's not true,” he snarls back.

Tony's jaw audibly clicks shut.

“Look,” Steve goes on, both hands braced on either side of the bag to steady it, while sand bleeds out to the ground. “Since I'm likely going to not be your freeloading tenant very soon, I feel okay saying this.”

“You're not going anywhere.”

“I’m gonna let you rethink that one in a couple of seconds.” Tony snorts, and crosses his arms over the reactor, while Steve goes on, “I don't know who told you you're a bad guy.

“But somebody did.”

Tony drops his arms.

Steve’s still looking at him steadily, and his voice is as full of conviction as only Captain America's can be. “Somebody, or something, along the way, made you convinced you're the bad guy, and you're just not. I don't know what kinds of bedtime stories they tell these days, but Tony… You put on a literal shining suit of armour and _save_ people. That's pretty much textbook-definition good-guy, and you _still_ don't believe it, so you go around doing things you _think_ a good guy would do.

“Like committing to someone you really like, but maybe don't love. Someone brave, intelligent, funny and beautiful. Someone like Pepper.”

Tony tries to look away. He can feel a coil of cold sweat slowly unspooling down his back. But Steve is looking at him, with those pale, ice-chip blue eyes, and Tony is trapped, held under, drowning. There is a tremor working through his fingers, now, and it feels like fear and anger and bewilderment.

“I might be wrong,” Steve says, achingly soft. “I almost always am.”

And that's why Tony asks the question. That's why Tony blurts out, “Why are you single?”

Steve cracks a smile. “Well, most men have a pretty hard time looking past the shield, actually—”

Was that a pun? For fuck’s sake. “I'm serious, Rogers.”

The smile dies. And Steve replies, “Because you never asked me out.”

Oh.

“Yeah.” Steve laughs softly. It's a quiet sound, even sad, a little bit. “You weren't expectin’ that, were you, Stark.”

“Steve.” Tony's voice is hoarse. Broken.

_What has he done._

“Don't worry about it,” Steve says, and his voice is normal now, steady and even-keeled, like nothing out of the last fifteen minutes just happened. “I’ll be out of your hair by tomorrow evening. Sorry about this, by the way,” he adds, gesturing to the sandbag.

“Don't worry about it,” Tony echoes automatically, and Steve—grins, and slaps his shoulder, and then strides out of the gym, while Tony’s left… standing there, sand spilling out onto the floor, wreckage at his feet, feeling like he’s been hit over the head and electrocuted for good measure.

There's probably a metaphor in there, about his life. Tony fucking hates metaphors.  
\-----

  
Steve's as good as his word. In less than thirty-six hours, his suite of rooms on the 87th has been emptied out. Tony’s in and out of meetings all day, and he misses when Steve leaves.

He had made keys for Pepper, keys that didn't really lead anywhere, symbolic more than functional, put them in a flat, velvet-lined, jewellery box like you might use for a pair of earrings. It's in his pocket now.

But he goes to Steve’s recently emptied apartment first, wanders the rooms. It's not like the space is empty; the furniture came with. Tony wanders the space quietly. He feels like a ghost.

The box, with Pepper’s keys, remains in his pocket, burning him, like it's become radioactive.   
———

  
Four months later, SHIELD is a flaming wreck of nothingness, Clint and Natasha are on indefinite loan to the Avengers’ program, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean, and Steve’s back in New York.

Except—

“You’re living _here_?” Tony asks, letting himself into Steve’s hideous little flat in Bed-Stuy. He kicks at the threadbare, industrial grey carpeting and tries hard not to let existential horror overtake him when he sees the dull, green paint on the walls. It matches the kitchen appliances. Everything in the room looks like it was last refurbished in the Hoover administration. Tony can feel an asbestos coming on. “This is— I don’t think they make words for this anymore.”

“Hi Tony,” Steve says pointedly, from where he’s sat at the formica-top kitchen counter, eating a bowl of cereal. There’s a New York Times open next to him. Tony feels like he’s been yanked back to 70s, and not in a good way. “Sure, why don’t you come on in,” Steve’s going on, in that prissy, annoying voice.

Tony ignores him. “You know Thor, and Jane, and Darcy, and Erik, and Clint, and Phil, and Nat, and May, and Daisy, and like, most of SHIELD has moved into the tower, right?”

“I don’t know half of those people,” Steve says with a frown.

“Uh-huh, there’s a problem with an easy fix,” Tony counters pointedly. “_Move into the tower._”

Steve blinked. “What?”

“You know they all think you hate me, right?” Tony demanded. “Like, they think I insulted your mother’s honor or something, and now you won’t—” He paused. “Wait, did I? I didn’t mean to. I meant to insult _**your**_ honor, I promise.”

“No, what? _No_, Tony you didn’t insult my mother’s honor, what the hell.”

“I’m just saying.” Tony shrugged. “I talk a lot of shit. You might hate me. In which case, not moving in is totally understandab—”

“Tony, I don’t hate you!” Steve exclaimed, spoon clattering back into the bowl, splashing Chunky-Monkey-Choco-Banana-flavoured milk onto the newspaper.

You had to appreciate the man’s taste in food, that was for sure.

“Oh,” Tony said weakly. “Well, good.” He paused. “Hang on a minute, then why haven’t you moved in?!”

“I thought—” And now it was Steve’s turn to pause, and stutter, and struggle to look Tony in the eye. “After we— After we last talked, what I said, I thought maybe you wouldn’t want me to—”

“What?” Tony said, and he had _fought_, goddammit, he had worked _hard_ to excise the memory of that conversation entirely from his mind, but now it all came roaring back,

(—because you never asked me out.)

and Tony’s neck felt unbearably hot, when realization struck him like a lightning bolt: “You thought I wouldn’t _**want**_ you to move in?!”

Steve… shrugged. Well, that was pretty goddamn weak.

“Jesus,” Tony said, almost to himself. He scrubbed his face once, roughly. “You really think I’m that much of a bastard, huh.”

“Tony,” Steve said quietly. “You know that’s not true.”

“Do I,” Tony said again, but it was still in that soft, heartbreaking tone, and Steve didn’t know how to respond. What to say.

“If it’s alright with you,” Steve said, breaking that awful silence, “I would really like to move in.” Tony’s gaze whipped up to meet his. Steve let the corner of his mouth quirk into a grin. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this place is kind of a dump.”

Tony grinned back. Just a little, but it felt like someone had reached a hand between his ribs and into the soft, vulnerable parts underneath, and squeezed.  
———

  
A whole week flew by before Steve realized what was wrong, and even then, he had the good sense to ask Darcy, rather than Tony. Steve wasn’t sure, but somehow, in a building full of superspies, Darcy Lewis seemed to be the one who knew everybody’s secrets.

It was pretty humbling.

“Can I— I have a quick question for you, Miss Lewis,” Steve said, settling down on the other end of her couch. It was a pleasantly boring Tuesday evening; Darcy was playing an intense level of Kwazy Lupcakes, and she held up an imperious finger, frowning in concentration, before the phone trilled with news of her victory and she turned to him. “Shoot, pretty boy. How can I help?”

“I was wondering where Miss Potts was.”

Darcy arched a brow. “In Malibu? Where her job is?”

“I though SI HQ moved to New York?”

“For like, a hot second, sure. The R&D department is still here, but all the rest of it is still back in Cali. Why? You need FaceTime with Pep? Cause I can arrange that. Possibly. Maybe. I have connections.”

“I thought…” Steve shook his head. “I was under the impression that… Miss Potts lived here.”

“While the place was under construction, sure. She was surprising the build and stuff. It’s her money, innit?”

“Oh. I see. But Tony…”

Darcy, scenting new information like a bloodhound on the hunt, visibly trembled with excitement. “But Tony…?” she prompted, with badly-hidden enthusiasm.

Steve flushed. God damn, but he had come too close to the truth. He was pretty sure Tony wouldn’t appreciate Steve spreading rumors about… “Nothing,” Steve said. “It’s nothing.”

Darcy pouted like a four year old. “Boo, you whore.”

Steve hitched up an awkward grin. “Sorry?”

“Fuck off,” she said, but nicely, and Steve obeyed with a smile. Something was starting to pound quite viciously in his throat. Tony hadn’t asked Pepper to move in, and Steve couldn’t help but feel that that was, almost definitely, his own stupid fault. God damn it.  
————

  
Steve borrows a dramful of that ten thousand year old Asgardian scotch from Thor — Well, borrows implies intent to return. Commandeers, that might be a better word. Nothing quite like liquid courage, right?

And he’s going to need quite a lot, for this.

He stops short at the door to Tony’s lab. He can hear music pounding through the glass. “The boss okay for a visit, JARVIS?” Steve asks at the door. He has he access code, of course, but Steve was taught to knock before entering, and this seems like the next best thing.

“He is,” JARVIS says, and Steve punches in the code. “I’ll turn down the volume, shall I?” the AI adds smoothly, as the door slides open.

Tony is in the lab, in fact, and half-naked, and a little sweaty, and there’s afternoon sunlight flooding into the room and— god. This is why Steve believes in the Devil.

“Oy!” Tony yells at nothing. “What have I said about turning down my mus—“

“You have a visitor,” JARVIS replies, with a touch of asperity.

Which prompts Tony to look up. “Steve,” he greets, grabbing a towel and wiping the back of his neck.

Steve is now jealous of a towel. This is already not going well.

“Steve?” Tony asks again, to Steve, who has been drifting slowly ever closer to the workstation.

How long has he been staring? “Tony,” Steve manages. Wow, maybe the scotch hadn’t been the excellent-est idea, huh? “I thought we should talk.”

Tony narrows his eyes. “Did you.”

“I… wanted to apologize.”

A blink. “Huh?”

“You didn’t ask Pepper to…” Steve shakes his head. They’re maybe half a foot apart now. “I feel like I’m at fault, there. I didn’t mean to…”

Something in his face tightens, shuts down hard. “Woah there, soldier. You think I didn’t ask Pepper to move in because of you?”

Put that way, it does seem… unbelievably arrogant. Oh jeez. “I didn’t mean to— to presume. It was just that, I heard you didn’t ask her to move in, and we had had that, uh, conversation that day—”

“I assure you, Captain,” Tony bites off icily, “my relationships don’t actually revolve around _you_.”

“That’s not what I—” There is a bead of sweat working it’s way down Tony’s neck, glistening golden in the sunlight. Steve keeps getting distracted by it, and then by the angry flash in those dark eyes, the steady rise and fall of his chest. His sweatpants have slipped… dangerously low.

”No, of course you didn’t.”

Where did this go wrong, Steve wonders wearily. Why is Tony so angry with him?

Why, unless… unless he isn’t. Embarrassment can look an awful lot like rage, sometimes, can’t it? And— And—

“Okay,” Steve says. The drop of sweat has pooled in his clavicle. Some part of his brain is roaring alarms, but that part of brain doesn’t seem to control his hand, because he lifts it up, up, all the way, the nail of his index finger wiping away that perfect round drop, smearing it across his collarbone, a gleam of wetness, and Tony—

His eyes widen. He stops breathing. His heart races.

“I’m sorry I assumed,” Steve says calmly, his body a riot of screaming desire. His hand, in further sedition, has now curled around the back of Tony’s neck. “Any other presumptions of mine you’d like to correct, now would be a good time.”

“No,” Tony says. Whispers. His voice is gritty, hoarse. He barely shakes his head, like he’s terrified of dislodging Steve’s grip.

No chance of that, Steve thinks dizzily. I’m never letting go now.

He strokes the soft downy hair at the base of his skull. Tilts his face down. He can hear the hum of the reactor this close up. “Then ask me.”

“Huh?”

“I’m still very single, Tony. _Ask_ me, you idiot.”

Tony blinks. “What, _now?”_

Steve narrows his eyes. “I’m not letting you dream up some crazy ideas in your head, where you think this is a one night stand, or something like that. You want this, you’re in it for the long haul.” That scotch mustn’t be all that strong, Steve figures, because it doesn’t stop his stomach from swooping unsteadily now. “Unless you don’t want— this. Which is—” He carefully loosens his grip, something cold fisting in his stomach. “Which is fine, of course, I don’t—”

“Shut _up_, will you _shut up,” _Tony says, and _now_ he’s finally getting it, fingers hooking tightly into Steve’s belt loops, yanking him close, bodies almost slamming together. With his other hand, he blindly feels around the workstation, before he finds what he apparently needs - a lugnut, about an inch wide. “Steve, Steven, oh Captain, my Captain, will you do me the very great honor—”

Steve frowns at him. “If you’re going to quote Walt Whitman, I’m just going to assume you don’t mean _any_ of this seriously—”

“_Poetry_,” Tony growls dangerously, “I’m quoting _poetry_ to you, this is _very_ romantic, you ungrateful asswipe, will you do me the incredible honor of going to dinner with me, holy _god_.”

Steve pauses. “I don’t think that lugnut is going to fit my finger, Tony.”

Tony’s jaw flexes in a resplendent display of controlled rage. “It _will_ if I crush your finger into a fucking _noo—”_

But then Steve’s laughing, and kissing the words out of his mouth, and they never confirm exactly what Steve’s fingers were going to be crushed into, which is just as well, because they never get to dinner that day.

Or the next.

Or the one after that.

Neither of them particularly mind that turn of events.  
———

  
And as it turns out, four years later, the lugnut, which was a spare from an old Iron Man suit, was made of gold-titanium alloy - incidentally, a fine material for ring-making.

It fits Steve perfectly. Tony is very smug.  
————

**Author's Note:**

> no fingers were harmed in the making of this fic. 
> 
> thanks for reading! if you liked it, remember to hit kudos <3  
find me on tumblr [@pasdecoeur](https://pasdecoeur.tumblr.com)


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